The air in the kitchen was thick with the scent of ozone and damp earth. Lyka, the wolf hybrid, was hunched over the counter, her knuckles white as she gripped the edge of the marble. The full moon wasn't for another week, but the "blueprints" of her wolf side were already surging—heightened senses, a roaring internal temperature, and an overwhelming urge to bolt into the dark.
Mina, the vampire hybrid, stood exactly three feet away. To anyone else, it was a respectful distance. To Lyka, whose skin felt like a live wire, Mina's presence felt like a magnetic pull she was desperate to resist.
"You're doing it again,"Mina whispered. Her voice was low, melodic, and edged with the rhythmic clicking of her fangs against her lower lip—a nervous habit she couldn't suppress.
"Doing what?" Lyka growled, her voice vibrating in her chest.
"Retreating. I can hear your heart slowing down, Lyka. You're shutting off the lights and locking the doors inside your head. Talk to me."Mina took a half-step forward. Her skin was unnaturally pale under the LED lights, her eyes tracking the pulse in Lyka's neck with an intensity that wasn't hunger, but a desperate need for reassurance.
Lyka spun around, her eyes flashing a sharp, predatory amber. "I'm not retreating. I'm regulating. My biology is screaming at me to move, Mina. If I don't go out there, I'm going to break something in here."
"Then let me come," Mina countered quickly, her hand reaching out, fingers twitching. "I can keep up. We can run together."
"No!" Lyka snapped, the word hitting the air like a bark. She saw Mina flinch, the vampire's pupils dilating until her eyes were almost entirely black—the 'Anxious' blueprint in full survival mode. "You don't understand. When I'm like this, I need to be a ghost. Your scent, your heartbeat… it's too much. It's too loud."
Mina's expression crumbled. To her, "too much" translated to "unwanted." Her vampire heritage made her a creature of the bond; to be separated was to be starved. "You're choosing the silence over me again. You're treating our connection like a cage."
The silence that followed was agonizing. Lyka watched a single tear track down Mina's cold cheek. The wolf in her wanted to snarl at the pressure, but the human in her—the part that loved this fragile, eternal girl—ached.
Lyka took a shaky breath, forcing the heat in her blood to simmer down. She didn't move toward Mina, but she held out her hand, palm up. A compromise.
Mina hesitated, then placed her cold, porcelain-like hand in Lyka's burning one. The contrast was a shock to both their systems—the fire and the frost of their blueprints colliding.
"Ten minutes," Lyka muttered, her thumb tracing the blue veins on Mina's wrist. "I'll sit here for ten minutes. Then I go to the woods. And when the sun hits the porch, I'll be back. I'll always be back."
Mina leanedin, resting her forehead against Lyka's shoulder, finally hearing the wolf's heart sync up with her own. "Promise?"
"It's written in the code, Mina,"Lyka whispered into her hair. "I can't help but come back to you."